This Poem was Submitted By: Thomas Edward Wright On Date: 2004-02-11 14:07:46 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!To Listen to Music While Reading this Poem, just Click Here!
Click Here To add this poem to your "Voting Possibilities" list!
A Late Afternoon Service (For You)
We all file in and take our seats.
As if they could fall! So
We up-float into the snowy flakes.
How they hover, waiting
For my tongue to recover from the last debate
And the Coffee Mate –
I christen them as the Greeks did long ago
As they floated upon seas of glass,
Seizing star after star in celestial strings of
Blue Light Specials –
What color is a cardinal at dusk?
Red enough to know? Or is it her
Shape, her mitered-ness against
The new veil of white – still visible
In the waning light – her red man
Prim, stoic atop the feeder’s roof
A sentry, a center, a color-coded
Memory of once before, of texture –
There are prayers lifted, sent.
One monitors; another repents.
There. Together at the trough.
A black cat in the window chatters
Imagining her communion. The red rustler.
He tosses aside his orts.
Dives for the seed of that divine
Sunflower – dance-hops –
The body of whiteness hums.
Those flakes suspended in atmos –
Wrinkle their noses in the shift
To dusk, center themselves again,
And again – purse-lipped to a fault –
Yet one can hear them praying
Here at the edge of the dark wood
At dusk on a Feb-ry floating eve.
I listen intently tonight. Manage to
Pocket my tongue.
The cat cackles from the front pew.
The choir hymns and haws.
An organ’s Bach is backing out.
And I hear them now, crying
One can hear them crying,
Yes. Mostly crying.
What those snowflakes do best.
And then we, in unison,
Amen the sun away and pray:
Orisons to our gods are sent
And sent are we into the nigh –
Into the knowing snow –
The unknowing morrow.
|
|
Copyright © February 2004 Thomas Edward Wright
This Poem was Critiqued By: Lynda G Smith On Date: 2004-03-31 18:08:42
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 1.00000
Thank you for sharing this Thomas. It brought back a memory of a 16 year old friend who said that the forest was his cathedral. I am at my most comfortable out of doors and dusk delivers such beauty. You have captured the music and mystery of it, in your poem. Your historical references to the Greeks and the analogy to how they viewed the stars and the import of meteorites and celestial events as themselves special harbingers from the gods, is delightfully metaphored, your words and image so expressive, how you double metaphored the snow falling as stars...
As an artist, I know only too well what happens to colour when light is removed: how colours lose their vibrancy and form takes precidence, sculptural, bonding itself to your frame of reference, how textures feed information that is superceded by the light of day, to become a great assist at dusk.
How they call to one another... I have tried to join in those hymns from time to time, but they always know the counterfeit member of the choir*smile* I suppose I should attend practice more often.
And my decks, covered with the seed covers and tossed seeds too small for their consideration, or the husks of their communion to be swept into the garden... to become the body .... of our earth.
I love that you dissolved the word atmosphere... losing its clarity even as you would lose visual images in the falling snow. To be still in silence is a hard task for any human. Once again, I must practice. You managed this late afternoon and your metaphore of 'pocket my tongue' is exquisite. I too have cats who cannot understand the purpose of glass, who speak to the birds and squirrels who would tempt them beyond their capacity to endure. The imagery of the symphony of sound as it begins to ebb into night sounds is indeed worthy of the masters name. You are an amazing poet.
The benediction of understanding and compassion and acceptance of the night as a time when prayers ascend and we look forward to whatever comes our way on the morrow, has me drawing breath in a sigh. It is dusk even as I write this, and your poem has developed in my mind and heart, a fresh awareness.... Thank you
Lynda
This Poem was Critiqued By: Elaine Marie Phalen On Date: 2004-03-07 22:16:12
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
Another superlative piece. The sonics are incredible (the lines are a case in point, with all the "ow" combinations). The visuals are stunning, like the cardinal with his mitered-ness (I think of a red bird, not a holy man). The recovering tongue awaits the Host, and we share in the intimacy of the moment. The speaker seems very distractible but everything conjoins to form the total image of God - and this is not the God in robes with a beard, but the divinity of Being here and aware of it all. The white flakes "suspended in atmos" are gentle, dove-like, the Holy Spirit descending with such subtlety. The cackling cat in the front row gives new meaning to the term "lip service". Wordplay on Bach/backing is an aural treat.
The poem releases its subjects but not its readers; the lingering afterimages will remain for a long time. I think this is magnificent writing.
Brenda
This Poem was Critiqued By: Claire H. Currier On Date: 2004-03-01 09:06:12
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.50000
Being a lover of nature like I am that is where this one has taken me......to the woods, to the back deck, to find my own cat doing what he does best.....wait for the birds to come in for dinner and then try to catch his own.......the red cardinal appears most every night and before him comes to make sure things are safe and proper is the wife......she is dark in color and not attractive at all......but he loves her and tells her so in his song later in the night......over and over again you have painted such beauty my friend, and if you associate this with life then it is good.......nice structure, great word flow and images, well as you can see you did create for me a wonderfull wonderland of sound and sight.......
Thanks for posting and sharing this with us......hope it makes the top list for you for it deserves to be there....be safe, God Bless, Claire
This Poem was Critiqued By: Wayne R. Leach On Date: 2004-02-24 19:41:02
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.00000
Beee-aaa-uuu-tifully done. Excellent rhythm/meter throughout, and just enough rhyming within and without to help capture the wonderful imagery. There is a journey as beautiful awaiting all of us, I believe. I can make no improvement here.
Best loved lines =
I listen intently tonight. Manage to
Pocket my tongue.
Awaiting more, Thomas. wl
This Poem was Critiqued By: Jordan Brendez Bandojo On Date: 2004-02-19 21:48:29
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.85714
Hmmmm.... there should be something special here, Tom! This poem is
full of dedication and memories. I like the language, it is enlivining.
One can take the poem moving and acting like in theater. As always,
read in awe to your poetic wit and ingenuity. You always soar high cause
your mind is soaring high. I am but a novice poetry reader who always
long to have your skill. NO PUN! Hehehe! Ok, let me not be serious this time.
The actions you put in here are energizing to the bones. Hehe! You used
action words in present tenses but I am wondering why you have past tense in
the line 8 of the first stanza. Anyway, that is only a trivial comment to consider.
Your pieces always sound original that creates a trademark. The use of proper nouns is
just a manifestation. I especially like the last stanza. It is dramatically done!
Kudos to your artistry!
Keep writing gems,
Jordan
This Poem was Critiqued By: Rachel F. Spinoza On Date: 2004-02-17 15:47:20
Critiquer Rating During Critique: Unknown
Thom
On the road again -
birds and pews and miters
grins and gasps and hums of hymns
and the cat in the front row -
grinning her grin
yes it is so
and up we go so many miles down..in
the snow the snow the choral snow
thanks for the memory
Rachel the unrepentant
This Poem was Critiqued By: Mark Steven Scheffer On Date: 2004-02-15 00:48:48
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 7.50000
Tom,
A pivotal poem, transitional. A watermark i'll likely remember. And i will say more than just . . . hey, i knew that guy. I will have been there, THERE. Here. At this moment in time.
Mark
This Poem was Critiqued By: Mell W. Morris On Date: 2004-02-12 17:37:48
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
T.:
I would like to be inside your brain for five minutes but I doubt I could withstand
the noise of neurons. This is a wonderful piece that no one will understand, myself
included, but you have penned some great lines and hinted at even greater truths.
Okay, church and it's snowing and the flakes "hover, waiting for my tongue to recover
from the last debate and the Coffee Mate." So you are quiet...if there's a sermon,
you are ignoring same...and your mind wanders to come up with such important queries
as: "What color is a cardinal at dusk?"
Of course! It's a Catholic church and you're trying to recognize someone entering
whom you don't know. You destroy that little illusion with the red male sitting
on the feeder, "a sentry, a center." Lovely descriptors in the stanza.
Stanza 3 gives me great pleasure with:
"There are prayers lifted, sent.
One monitors; another repents.
There. Together at the trough."
You do have a way of equalizing persons and religions.
Now enter the black cat at the window, symbolic perhaps? and the cardinal tosses his bits of
food or leavings and goes for the sunflower seed.
While this occurs, the snowflakes hum and begin to pray with wrinkled noses and pursed lips.
You say you are intently listening but it appears to the snow..."Manage to pocket my tongue"
ends the stanza with a flourish. Love it!
I wish I had written many of the lines herein, including the hymning and hawing from the choir.
Brilliant as is "An organ's Bach backing out."
The snowflakes leave off praying and begin crying. Very significent shift and the heart of the
poem, IMO. "Crying is what snowflakes do best" while you "amen the sun away". The snow is more
knowing than the people praying and you are sent "into the nigh", clueless and facing yet once again:
"The unknowing morrow."
Beauteous ending and sad. Your usual humor is here, of course, and you made me smile and laugh,
but the entire piece, surreal or straight, evokes a deep sorrow. A commentary on the state of
things.
That is my take and I'm sure you are writing about cross-country skiing in Norway but whatever,
I adore the poem, will print and keep it, and maybe one day you will learn to compose less
abstruse pieces. A good way to start down-writing: read my poems.
Kudos and a laurel wreath, dear T.
Mell-o
This Poem was Critiqued By: Regis L Chapman On Date: 2004-02-12 16:48:42
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 8.75000
Wow, it's a powerful poem. More at the end than the middle or beginning, though. I like the form, although I know not which it is off the top of my head here.
There are a couple of finely wrought phrases here:
"I listen intently tonight. Manage to
Pocket my tongue."
and
"The choir hymns and haws.
An organ’s Bach is backing out."
It feels a little disjointed, and I am not ENTIRELY certain of the subject, but the place is clear enough- a church. It could be regular mass or a funeral, I am not sure.
Well done in the main, but it feels like the subject could be pointed out more, or maybe I am missing the point. It could be that this feeling I have was intentional by the poet, to represent the subject or event with a certain feel. In that case, it hit the mark.
Thanks,
REEG!
This Poem was Critiqued By: Joanne M Uppendahl On Date: 2004-02-11 21:05:18
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.33333
Tom:
I am reacting to your trenchant wit and a certain telling vulnerability expressed
in this poem. The extremely mundane ("Blue Light Specials" and "Coffee Mate") mixed
with prayers, mitres and black cats chattering for imagined communions. I have to
google about "tossed orts" as I have forgotten what those are, but I suspect they
are upchucked morsels. As for wrinkled noses and pursed lips, I've seen them
around. If you are pocketing your tongue, I hope that your sportsjacket has been
dry cleaned recently or you'll come up with a mouthful of lint and possibly
orts. You've made me laugh. Wonder. Wonderbread.
OK siriusly now, I think the poem intends to show how ridiculous are our posturings
given that we know slightly less than nothing.
One can hear them crying,
Yes. Mostly crying.
What those snowflakes do best.
And then we, in unison,
Amen the sun away and pray:
Orisons to our gods are sent
And sent are we into the nigh –
Into the knowing snow –
The unknowing morrow.
As if our mutterings have any effect on the sun's appearance or disappearance,
we wee creatures send out Orisons. "And sent are we into the nigh -" Clues,
perhaps, that we are clueless, as even the snow knows more. I love the
unfinishedness of "nigh -"
Nicely done, and once more, I wish I were capable of an intelligent response.
Les prentiours,
Joanne
Poetry Contests Online at The Poetic Link
Click HERE to
return to ThePoeticLink.com Database Page!